I shoved as many filters as I could find into my backpack. Better safe than sorry.
I took a deep breath, counting backwards in my head as to not incite a panic attack. I was going to be fine, besides—
Find water. Find food. Find people.
Three simple steps.
I’d spent most of my life underground moving at a measured pace—do this, then that. Small tasks. Practical chores I could focus on when everything else grew out of control, but the bunker wasn’t a long-term plan anymore. Technically speaking, it was still livable, but fixing the water system wasn’t realistic. If it was the well pump, the issue could be anything. A blown motor. A cracked line somewhere between the reservoir and the bunker.
Even if I figured it out, I didn’t have the tools—or the knowledge—to fix it. And the problems were stacking up. The air filtration had been acting strange for weeks, and the power outages were getting worse. Longer. The bunker had kept me alive, but it wasn’t going to keep me alive forever.
Besides… I wasn’t alone. Not really. Between my friends, who I’d discovered were somewhere across the world, and the other bunkers Jude and the Order had contact with, there were people out there. Which meant there was a world out there.
If I was being honest, the hardest part about the end of the world wasn’t the rationing or the lack of sunlight. It was loneliness. I think that’s why I started dreaming of him in the first place. Turns out Dr. Whelan and hisstupid psychology book was right—the brain is exceptionally good at healing itself. At protecting you from things you don’t think you can survive alone.
“Well, Patricia—” I placed both gloved hands on the heavy rotating lock. My stomach growled, reminding me that my rations had grown increasingly alarming. “Here goes nothing.” The metal resisted at first, then it groaned, and slowly the lock turned.
I didn’t know what I was expecting when I climbed the steep concrete path upward, but it wasn’t light. Sunlight filtered through heavy clouds overhead. It was weak—thin and brittle and gray—but it still broke through in fractured beams across the forest floor. I stopped at the top of the ramp and for a moment, staring.
My boots sat between where the concrete ended and the moss began. The budding green was stubborn, creeping across the path in reckoning. The world, slowly deciding to reclaim what we’d abandoned. Cold seeped through the rubber soles of Paul’s boots and into my bones, a damp chill that should have belonged to winter mornings and snow-capped mountains. But it was air, real air that hadn’t been recycled from stale vents.
I knelt in the damp moss and ran a gloved finger over the tip of a budding fern. The fronds curled tightly toward the sky and I followed their gaze upward and studied the evergreens stretching toward the clouds.
Sure, it was dark and it was cold. So much had died in the darkness, but nature was already reclaiming what we’d stolen. It wasn’t the end of the world. It was rebirth.
My fingers twitched at the edge of the rubber mask, I wanted to take it off so badly, but I could still taste the ash in the air. The forest was covered in it. Flakes of black soot floating in front of my eyes. I was beginning to doubt I’dhave much luck finding any nutritious food. Maybe an abandoned gas station filled with chips and queso.
God, I’d kill for queso.
But first, I’d be hiking.
Paul’s house was worse for wear. It had taken me nearly an hour to hike there—embarrassingly so, mostly because I was terrible with directions and managed to circle the same grove of trees at least four times. That, and with every step it became harder and harder to lift my boot and take another one forward. I’d thankfully packed light, but each labored breath and dull squeeze behind my eyes was a reminder that water was abso-fucking-lutely essential.
The forest was eerily quiet. For once in my life, I almost wished a bear or cougar would wander past so I wouldn’t feel so alone. Although, I’d once seen a video of a bear attack and on second thought… I was better alone.Alone is cool.
Nothing was alive here anymore. It was inching its way back, but everything was half-consumed by smoke and ash, or snapped in half by the blasts themselves.
Inside the house wasn’t much better as there was nothing useful left. No food. No water. No tools. Unless you could count the small hatchet left beside the wood burning stove that someone had used to make kindling. Definitely not Paul, he didn’t seem like the type.
A fire had clearly torn through the place because half the house was collapsed or unreachable, the roof sagging inward like a broken rib cage. I didn’t even attempt the stairs. Miraculously, Paul’s office was mostly intact. I pushed the door open and began rifling through the drawers, not entirely sure what I was even looking for. Anything, I guess. I’d found pliers, a hammer, and a handful of Allen wrenches in a toolbox back in the bunker, but unless there was Ikea furniture around to assemble—they were useless.
I know what my mom would say.Beggars can’t be choosers.Which, to her credit, sure. When you’re seven and insisting you’re starving but refusing to eat your edamame because of the texture—yeah, I suppose beggars can’t be choosers. But this was the end of the world. So…
I didn’t think it was too much to ask for a proper tool set. Or a full-sized axe. Or a chainsaw. Or—
Whoa.The bottom drawer of Paul’s desk slid open to reveal what could only be described as hidden treasure. A gun. I picked up the compact weapon and held it toward the dying light. I had no idea what kind it was, but it was small enough to sit comfortably in my hand. There were a few boxes of ammunition tucked beside it. Which meant that come tomorrow—if I practiced enough—I might actually survive an encounter with a bear.
Probably not, but you know, we were staying positive around here.
Unzipping my jumpsuit I checked to make sure the safety was on and then slid it into the pocket of my jacket. I’d need to find some better way to carry it on my person, like a belt, so that it wasn’t useless in my defense.
I was halfway through the rest of Paul’s desk drawers when I found a stack of photographs rubber-bandedtogether. Curiosity winning, I slipped the band free and flipped through them. Paul on a beach somewhere tropical. Paul standing beside a boat. Paul, standing beside a very beautiful blonde woman who looked relatively close to his age. I squinted at the back of the photo.Paul and Patricia, Venice, 2018
“Oh,” I said slowly, glancing at my breast pocket. Unzipping the puffer I opened my pocket to check in on Patricia, the gecko. She blinked at me sleepily, completely unaware that her entire identity had been compromised. I looked between her and the photograph, and then the next. There were tons of them. Patricia in a bikini on a boat. Patricia, sitting at a café table sipping red wine. Paul and Patricia standing beside friends in front of a monument somewhere in Europe. “Well this is awkward.” She stared back at me with the same blank judgmental expression she always had. “Paul,” I muttered, shaking my head. “You creep.”
I tucked the photo back into the drawer and pulled Patricia out, holding her up to eye level. “Alright, new rule,” I said. “You cannot be named after Paul’s ex-wife. That’s deeply unsettling.” Who names their pet after their ex? Bridget mentioned he’d been through a messy divorce and she one hundred percent painted him as the victim, but—
I wasn’t too sure about that anymore.
